"Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I'm on a horse."

—Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice Man

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The Man Your Man Could Smell Like is a 2010 ad campaign for Old Spice-brand male hygiene products starring ex-NFL player Isaiah Mustafa. It started with a single commercial in which Mustafa (a.k.a. Old Spice Man) describes everything that would be possible if the target audience's man stopped using lady-scented bodywash, and the video quickly went viral.

The success of the first commercial paved the way for a second, which proved to be just as popular. Two weeks later, Wieden Kennedy boldly went where no advertising agency had gone before and filmed dozens of short, improvised scenes of Mustafa giving personal responses to everyone (from Ellen DeGeneres to Anonymous) who had commented on the new Old Spice ads via social network. Almost 200 video responses in total were uploaded to Youtube between July 12 and 14, 2010, all of which can be viewed on Old Spice's YouTube channel. For Superbowl 2011, Mustafa starred in another one. And another one. And another one.

A challenge was issued and accepted in July of 2011, when a long-haired European named Fabio declared himself the new Old Spice guy. Mustafa and Fabio responded to questions on Facebook and YouTube in shorts similar to the video response campaign the year before, with viewers invited to vote for who should be the real Old Spice Man. Mustafa won, but immediately announced that he will be taking a vacation. In the interim the "Old Spice guy" role has been filled by Terry Crews and various NFL players.

In the commercials, Mustafa recites his monologue in Dramatic Deadpan during a single long take with lots of props and minimal CGI. While arbitrary costume changes and changes of scenery are the hallmarks of the televised commercials, the Youtube video responses were all simply Mustafa standing in a bathroomshirtless and in a white towel with several recycled props.

Old Spice's YouTube channel is both the #1 most subscribed and the #1 most viewed sponsor channel of all time, and the video responses gleaned a higher viewership in their first 24 hours than Barack Obama's victory speech. Sales of Old Spice Red Zone After Hours bodywash (the specific product the commercials advertise) have dropped 7% since it debuted; however, Old Spice product sales in general have shot up more than 170% since the debut of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Thus it's a highly unusual case of What Were They Selling Again? meeting Tropes Are Not Bad.

The popularity and acclaim of the commercials have even garnered Isaiah Mustafa an award for them and enabled him to break into acting in a number of roles ranging from cameos to supporting parts in film and television.

These tropes are now diamonds!

The Ace: Isaiah. You could smell like The Ace, provided you use Old Spice Body Wash and something not Lady-Scented.

Adam Westing: You know how Fabio looks like every parody of a romance novel cover model ever? Well, he's the guy such parodies are making fun of, and thus he is very much spoofing himself.

Alter Ego Acting: Isaiah Mustafa/The Old Spice Man. During the height of this ad's popularity, it was quite a thing to compare the former's relaxed, humble twitter feed with the latter's hammy goodness.

Buffy Speak: Prevalent in the Youtube responses, where he will refer to people by terms like "smart computer-type person".

Bullet-Proof Fashion Plate: Old Spice Man apparently had all of his tattoos bitten off by sharks and a whole arm replaced with the muscle tissue of a vicious animal, and yet he's still one ridiculously handsome man.

But Now I Must Go: At the end of Mano a Mano en el Baņo, Mustafa says, "I must go, for now."

A Super Bowl Special includes a commercial that starts as an ad for a Bounce dry cleaner stick-on bar, when Terry Crews bursts through the wall on a jet-ski, proclaiming that Old Spice is so powerful, "it can sell itself in other people's commercials!"

Stylistic Suck: Fabio's videos are meant to portray him as an egotistical prat, speaking in an over-the-top, intentionally incomprehensible Italian accent, and are clearly being set up to give Isaiah Mustafa the victory. That isn't stopping people from genuinely not liking him.

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